Medication containers, for example vials, ampoules or carpoules, are widely used as containers for preservation and storage of medical, pharmaceutical or cosmetic preparations to be administered in a liquid form, in particular in pre-dosed amounts. These generally have a cylindrical shape, can be made of plastic or glass and are available in large quantities at low costs. In order to fill the containers under sterile conditions as efficiently as possible concepts are increasingly used according to which the containers are already packaged in a transport or packaging container at the manufacturer of the containers under sterile conditions, which are then unpacked and further processed at a pharmaceutical company under sterile conditions, in particular in a so-called sterile tunnel.
For this purpose, various transport and packaging containers are known from the prior art, in which a plurality of medication containers are concurrently arranged in a regular arrangement, for example in a matrix configuration along rows and columns extending perpendicular thereto. This has advantages in the automated further processing of the containers because the containers can be passed to processing stations, for example to processing machines, robots or the like, at controlled positions and in a predetermined arrangement. For the transfer to a processing station it is just required to properly position and open the transport and packaging container. The downstream processing station will then know at what position and in what arrangement the containers to be processed further are arranged.
Such a transport and packaging container and a corresponding packaging concept is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 8,118,167 B2. The further processing of the containers is, however, always performed such that the supporting structure will be removed from the transport and packaging container, that the containers will be removed from the supporting structure and isolated and then individually placed on a conveyor, in particular a conveyor belt, and passed to the processing stations individually for the further processing. This limits the speed of processing that can be achieved. Particularly in the isolation of the containers by means of cell wheels or the like, it always occurs that individual containers abut uncontrolled, which results in an undesired abrasion and subsequently in a contamination of the interior volume of the containers or of the processing station and in an impairment of the outer appearance of the containers which is undesirable.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,100,263 B2 discloses a portable transport and packaging container that can be packed in a sterile manner, in which a plate-shaped supporting structure can be inserted which supports a plurality of medication containers in a regular arrangement. However, the medication containers cannot be processed further while they are accommodated in the transport or packaging container or supported in the supporting structure, but must be isolated first in the conventional manner and handed over to downstream processing stations.
There exist no packaging solutions for vials, that can be freeze-dried (lyophilized) and sealed in the supporting structure (in the so-called nest) and/or within the packaging without significant influence on this process. The supporting variants disclosed by WO 2010/086128 A1 support the vials in the nest on the bottom. Since the nest that serves as a supporting structure acts to isolate between the base plate of the freeze-dryer and the vials, the heat transfer is impaired and hardly economical.
WO 2009/015862 A1 discloses an approach using a nest serving as a supporting structure, which approach is based on a fixed coupling with the vials by means of a friction fit. Due to the fact that plastic nests can never be made without tension and that the vials usually have different lengths, it follows that individual vials get out of contact with the bottom in a freeze-dryer during the process. The freeze-drying process can therefore be unstable and difficult to control.
Furthermore, in this approach, the vials cannot be re-introduced from above into the nest e.g. after performing an inspection or an “in-process-control”. However, many pharmaceutical manufacturers request a strict avoidance of any intrusion of particles from above into the filling apertures of the vials. Thus, inserting the measured or tested vials from above into the nest during the processing is desired.
The freeze-drying process is one of the most expensive processes for the production of pharmaceuticals. As the costs essentially depend on the packing density that can be achieved during processing and freeze-drying, this has to be optimized.
Furthermore, the existing packaging solutions are not flexible enough to transport vials of different sizes. Most solutions using a nest make use of the outer diameter of the vials as an auxiliary contour for fixing. This, however, is usually not standardized and is subject to otherwise often relatively high tolerances.
In the supporting structures according to WO 2011/135085 A1 and WO 2009/015862 A1 the vials cannot be kept free of stress in the supporting structure, which would otherwise result in an undesirable bulging of the supporting structure, in particular during the processing, for example in a freeze-dryer.
In any case a direct contact with the bottoms of the medication containers, in particular with the bottoms of vials, is not possible for the conventional supporting structures. However, this complicates the further-processing of the medication containers, in particular if their content is to be subjected to a freeze-drying process (also known as lyophilization or sublimation drying). In addition, a further processing of the medication containers directly in the supporting structures is not possible, because they are supported there either in a rigid manner or they are not accessible for further processing to a sufficient extent, so that conventionally the medication containers must be removed from the supporting structures for a further processing, which is time-consuming and expensive.